Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Science of the Total Environment. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Science of the Total Environment, 572, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.02.046
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Unravelling organic matter and nutrient biogeochemistry in groundwater-fed rivers under baseflow conditions
T2 - uncertainty in in situ high-frequency analysis
AU - Bieroza, Magdalena Zofia
AU - Heathwaite, Ann Louise
N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Science of the Total Environment. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Science of the Total Environment, 572, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.02.046
PY - 2016/12/1
Y1 - 2016/12/1
N2 - In agricultural catchments, diffuse nutrient fluxes (mainly nitrogen N and phosphorus P), are observed to pollute receiving waters and cause eutrophication. Organic matter (OM) is important in mediating biogeochemical processes in freshwaters. Time series of the variation in nutrient and OM loads give insights into flux processes and their impact on biogeochemistry but are costly to maintain and challenging to analyse for elements that are highly reactive in the environment. We evaluated the capacity of the automated monitoring to capture typically low baseflow concentrations of the reactive forms of nutrients and OM: total reactive phosphorus (TRP), nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N) and tryptophan-like fluorescence (TLF). We compared the performance of in situ monitoring (wet chemistry analyser, UV–vis and fluorescence sensors) and automated grab sampling without instantaneous analysis using autosamplers. We found that automatic grab sampling shows storage transformations for TRP and TLF and do not reproduce the diurnal concentration pattern captured by the in situ analysers. The in situ TRP and fluorescence analysers respond to temperature variation and the relationship is concentration-dependent. Accurate detection of low P concentrations is particularly challenging due to large errors associated with both the in situ and autosampler measurements. Aquatic systems can be very sensitive to even low concentrations of P typical of baseflow conditions. Understanding transformations and measurement variability in reactive forms of nutrients and OM associated with in situ analysis is of great importance for understanding in-stream biogeochemical functioning and establishing robust monitoring protocols.
AB - In agricultural catchments, diffuse nutrient fluxes (mainly nitrogen N and phosphorus P), are observed to pollute receiving waters and cause eutrophication. Organic matter (OM) is important in mediating biogeochemical processes in freshwaters. Time series of the variation in nutrient and OM loads give insights into flux processes and their impact on biogeochemistry but are costly to maintain and challenging to analyse for elements that are highly reactive in the environment. We evaluated the capacity of the automated monitoring to capture typically low baseflow concentrations of the reactive forms of nutrients and OM: total reactive phosphorus (TRP), nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N) and tryptophan-like fluorescence (TLF). We compared the performance of in situ monitoring (wet chemistry analyser, UV–vis and fluorescence sensors) and automated grab sampling without instantaneous analysis using autosamplers. We found that automatic grab sampling shows storage transformations for TRP and TLF and do not reproduce the diurnal concentration pattern captured by the in situ analysers. The in situ TRP and fluorescence analysers respond to temperature variation and the relationship is concentration-dependent. Accurate detection of low P concentrations is particularly challenging due to large errors associated with both the in situ and autosampler measurements. Aquatic systems can be very sensitive to even low concentrations of P typical of baseflow conditions. Understanding transformations and measurement variability in reactive forms of nutrients and OM associated with in situ analysis is of great importance for understanding in-stream biogeochemical functioning and establishing robust monitoring protocols.
KW - Macronutrients
KW - Nitrogen
KW - Phosphorus
KW - Organic matter
KW - Baseflow
KW - Monitoring
KW - High-resolution sampling
KW - Autosamplers
KW - Optical sensors
KW - Groundwater-fed streams
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.02.046
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.02.046
M3 - Journal article
VL - 572
SP - 1520
EP - 1533
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
SN - 0048-9697
ER -